Fire costs Southside Furniture $20K

Thursday

May 9, 2013 at 1:48 PMMay 10, 2013 at 10:30 AM

DREW VAN DYKEMMI Editor

An early afternoon fire yesterday (Thursday, May 9) has an uninsured local business out approximately $20,000.

At 12:50 p.m., Thursday, Moberly/Randolph joint communications dispatched the Moberly Fire Department to a commercial structural fire at 607 South Morley Street — the Southside Furniture Exchange building. Per the MFD fire report, when crews were dispatched, the building "was reported to be fully involved."

Upon arrival at the scene at 12:51 p.m., the report notes that "there was heavy black smoke coming from all sides of the structure."

Upon MMI inquiry at the scene of the fire, MFD Captain Darryl Rasmussen reported that a person had been in the Southside structure when the call came in, but noted that said person had exited the building prior to their actual arrival time. There report confirms this fact, stating that the owner of the structure, a Mr. William Milnes, was within the building at the time of the fire, as his living quarters are in the back of the building. Milnes "refused medical care with Moberly Fire and Randolph County Ambulance," it says.

Moberly Fire Truck 304 laid two and a half inch hand lines, and connected a large-diameter supply line to the fire hydrant located at Carpenter and South Morley. They made initial attempts to extinguish the blaze from the building's south door. After withdrawing from the south door, they then placed a positive pressure ventilation fan facing the east door (to clear the smoke out of the structure), and re-entered the building through said doorway where they extinguished the remainder of the fire and conducted a "salvage and overhaul" of the building's contents.

The MFD conducted an investigation of the incident, and concluded that the fire had started above the flu pipe of the building's wood stove. Milnes admitted to the fire department that he had recently been burning some papers in the stove.

There were "no other injuries" reported from the fire, despite the fact that the smoke detector did not alert occupants of such occurrence.

Rasmussen noted on-scene that there was "structural damage" to the building, and added that mostly, the damage was just to the contents of the building.

The report expands on that, pointing out structural damage to the rafters above the aforementioned wood stove, as well as heat and smoke damage throughout the structure and to the "entire contents" of the building.

Pre-incident value of the property was estimated at $15,533. Pre-incident content value was estimated to be $10,000.

The property received close to $10,000 worth of damage, the MFD reports, while the contents of Southside Furniture Exchange were a complete loss — $10,000 in damage.

Milnes told the MFD that he held no insurance on the property or its contents.

Three suppression apparati and six suppression personnel were used in the firefighting effort. Two additional personnel and apparati were also used.

Traffic was diverted around Morley Street in front of the building, to make way for firefighting equipment.

Final crews left the scene at 2:27 p.m.

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